https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_of_Mencius_-_Yasheng_Hall_-_inside_-_P1050921.JPG
Image accessed online 2018 February 11
If my memory is correct the Pastor made a very bad decision that nearly resulted in the group losing it's club status on campus although I thought they might be going to be banned from campus at the time. I was not attending group meetings at this time but heard about it from a third party. I wrote this article on my opinion of banning UBF from campuses at that time. I am tempted to say my views on marriage by faith were naive then based on my writing but I also wrote an article refuting it and I think I simply did not put as much nuance as I should have and should have included the word "fraud," in describing marriage by faith. At the time I remember telling someone they should openly put on their recruitment literature and websites, "we do arranged marriages and do not allow dating if you join our group," and then I would be OK with what they were doing provided they give that and certain other information up front. I do not know what part 2 was going to be.
The article is below. I wrote it in 2015 and edited it in 2018 February
Why University Bible Fellowship (UBF) should be a protected but disputed practice of
religion and expression of speech in University campuses
Part 1 What does Confucianism have to do with UBF
Are you saying
Confucianism is evil and doesn’t that make you bigoted?
1.
I am not racist because Confucianism is not a
race but a religion believed by a larger percentage of Korean individuals than
for example European Americans but not believed by all Koreans.
2. There are many ways to interpret Confucius
writings but I am referring to the dangerous ways to practice certain
interpretations of certain portions of what Confucius taught that result in
psychological cults and I am not opposed to the positive things that might come
from certain portions of variations of the religion.
Do you hate
Confucianism or Confucians?
I hate what the negative aspects of some mainstream strands of
Confucianism do to people but that does not mean I hate people who are
Confucians in fact the fact that I hate that they are being harmed by negative
aspects of Confucianism might suggest that in some way I truly care for them
much more than if I outwardly agreed with them.
What is the purpose
of this Article series? Why do you think
UBF speech should be protected.
I wish to explain how UBF customs were based on mainstream
religious ideologies that existed at one time in Korea, how these customs based
on what was once the state religion in Korea made it easy for UBF to spread a modified
form of a psychological cult that already existed in S. Korean mainstream
society beyond S. Korea to the world and why UBF should not be banned from
Universities because Universities that ban UBF risk becoming information
control cults in and of themselves, undergo the risk of appearing bigoted
against the once state religion of Korea and thus appear bigoted against Korean
individuals unless they fail to enforce
the same rules for speech for both religious and secular speech and for one
religious denomination as opposed to another for the tenants in UBF that maybe
most offensive to reasonable Westerners were based on the state religion of
Korea in a slightly modified form. Banning UBF members or allowing them to come
to campus but not exercise their freedom of speech when it comes to the tenants
of their religious view on leadership without banning all Confucian students
who express similar views on leadership but are not part of UBF might be legally
problematic and potentially viewed as cruelly inconsistent. I wish to show additionally that matchmaking
has been a common practice in Islamic, Jewish and Asian cultures prior to UBF
and that dating has been looked down upon as haram by many Muslims and that
banning UBF because of UBF’s views on dating without banning Muslim Student
Associations would be failure to enforce the same rules of speech in one association
as opposed to another. An exception
would be if the matchmaking is combined with unethical illegal coercion in
which case the practitioners of said coercion should be prosecuted but not
everyone in the whole group should be punished because of the actions of the
few and this prosecution should not be for UBF members only but for anyone who
does said unethical and illegal activity regardless of denomination.
What about the word “disputed”
in the title?
I do not wish to spread the practices of Confucianism as
taught by Samuel Lee in the subtle guise of Bible teaching that conveniently
elevated him to leader by posting this article but rather I suggest the
solution to UBF members using their free speech to spread Samuel Lee’s version
of Confucianism is not to ban their free speech but to encourage other people
to use their free speech to express their disagreement in a way that will
convince people not to support Samuel Lee’s version of Confucianism. If we ban UBF from University Campuses they
will still be able to recruit students next to the boundaries of the University
but if we use our free speech to explain why people should not support Samuel
Lee’s Confucianism then students who heard our reasons will be better protected
and not unsafe the moment they step off campus because they were only protected
by the ignorance of censorship instead of the truth proclaimed through free
speech.
In your opinion what
is the origin of University Bible Fellowship (UBF?)
University Bible Fellowship is the result of Confucian students
who studied the Bible with Samuel Lee or Samuel Lee’s allies (those who
outwardly held Samuel Lee in higher regard than themselves) who attempted to harmonize
the teachings of the 66 books of the protestant Canon of Scripture with the
Confucian religion they were taught as children growing up in S. Korea. The need for guidance from elders in
Confucianism resulted in a magisterial structure similar to Ultramontane (as
opposed to Ultrajectine Roman Catholicism in which the pope is not considered
infallible) Roman Catholicism in which Samuel Lee was like the pope until his
death. I will explain why a pope like
figure is inevitable when strands of Confucianism are used as a lens to
interpret scripture. They used Biblical
passages to justify a need to recruit disciples from all over the world and
thus spread the teachings of Samuel Lee’s strand of Confucianism to Confucians
and Non-Confucians alike. They thought
they were making Disciples of Christ but you cannot serve both Christ and any
second individual’s teachings where their teachings are irreconcilable.
Why are there
similarities between UBF and the Unification Church?
According to Wikipedia The Unification Church was founded in
South Korea in 1954 and UBF in 1961
“In Ming China
(1368–1644), Neo-Confucianism had been adopted as the state
ideology. The new Joseon
Dynasty (1392–1910) followed suit and also adopted Neo-Confucianism as the
primary belief system among scholars and administrators.”
(Update note: 1961-18=1943 and 1943-34=1909<1910 it took
me a while to figure out my math)
A college student approximately 18 years old would have been
born in 1943 at the time UBF was founded this would mean if they had any
physical ancestors at least 34 years old alive at the time UBF was founded
these living ancestors would have lived in a society in which Confucianism was
the state religion. Both UBF and the
Unification Church share similar views on leadership and marriage because both
have a Confucian influenced lens for interpreting all of life.
Why are there
differences between UBF and the Unification Church?
The unification Church has a greater number of religious
writings that they interpret from a Confucian influenced lens and they have a
different leader to follow but a similar idea to follow him.
Where does the
practice of leadership in UBF, the Unification Church and North Korea come from?
“Among the various ways in which social divisions could have
been drawn, the most important were the vertical lines that bound
multigenerational lineages. And the most fundamental lessons to be learned by
individuals within a lineage were what role their generational position had
imposed on them and what obligations toward those senior or junior to them were
associated with those roles.”
“Confucian ethical rhetoric is still used in contemporary
South Korea. Other religions will incorporate it into discussions on proper
human behavior. It can be found in the government and in the business world
being used to encourage people to put the needs of the group above their own
individual needs.”
“It is difficult to find accurate information regarding
Confucianism in North Korean religion or practices.[19]
However, the Juche
ideology does encourage the Confucian virtues of loyalty, reverence, and
obedience”
“The working class is not to think for themselves, but instead
to think through the "Great Leader” “
How do UBF members
with a Confucian upbringing interpret the Bible?
They consider their Bible teacher to be their senior and
their Bible teachers’ Bible teacher to be their Bible Teacher’s senior because
in S. Korean Confucianism a teacher is considered senior to his student. The junior demonstrates obedience to the
senior just as in Confucianism. The
senior requests that the junior believe the Bible to be true and that the Bible
teaches a leadership structure based on the strand of Confucianism taught by
Samuel Lee, since the junior already accepts that he should obey his leader
based on Confucianism he accepts the Strand of Confucianism taught by Samuel
Lee and uses it as a lens to interpret all of scripture. The student also learns to copy his teacher’s
behavior. Since each person copies their
teacher’s behavior and Bible interpretation the interpretation traces all the
way back to a top leader who in this case is Samuel Lee or the pope of UBF. There is some variation in teaching and
behavior just like in the game of telephone where someone who copies a message
imperfectly will produce an imperfect replica at the final recipient. But the reason there is not more variation
about the belief in leadership structure is because the members recruited from
S. Korea in the early history of UBF often were taught Confucianism before they
ever met their first UBF Bible teacher and their biological children were
taught Samuel Lee’s strand of Confucianism from their parents resulting in a
very high percent of the Korean members both 1st and 2nd
gen of UBF believing in Samuel Lee’s strand of Confucianism.
“Study, for Confucius, means finding a good teacher and
imitating his words and deeds. A good teacher is someone older who is familiar
with the ways of the past and the practices of the ancients.”
Why don’t Westerners
recruited to UBF understand that they are being invited to study a modern
version of Confucianism?
Because the Bible teacher quotes from the Bible and explains
why it teaches the leadership structure believed in UBF but actually the Bible
can be interpreted more than one way.
If the Bible can be
interpreted more than one way why doesn’t the Bible student not raised in
Confucianism suggest or believe a different interpretation? I list 5 possible reasons but there
maybe more and a student may change between any of the 5 with time
1. Sometimes they believe a
different interpretation but do not realize they believe a different
interpretation because they assume certain implied exceptions to what the
teacher is saying if they realized the teacher meant what they said without
some of the exceptions the student believed were exceptions the student might
have acknowledge a problem with the
message. The student thinks the words
of a teacher are intended to mean something different than what the teacher
really meant since the student does not interpret the teacher’s
words with a Confucian lens.
2. They accept it because it is the
first interpretation they heard (See Proverbs 18:17) and they did not yet hear
another one
3. They do not accept it and live
their life as though they do not accept it but continue to attend the group
because they like other things about it or agree with other things taught or
have other motivations resulting in conflict either for the rest of their life
or until they leave the group (or hypothetically the group changes.) The leadership views these students as
rebellious.
4. They do not accept it but try to
obey leadership anyway and do not verbally question the leadership because they
want to remain in the group while avoiding conflict.
5. They do not accept it and so
they either choose on their own not to show up or are discouraged from showing
up. This means it will be hard to
find someone in leadership teaching civil disobedience.
(Update note: Because those who disagree often maybe gone
before they ever become promoted to high leadership positions, affecting the
proportions of the group leadership members belief systems.)
6.
They infiltrate the group knowing it is wrong like in a spy movie ;)
Websites cited accessed on March 15, 2015
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